Every week we bring hands-on fundraising advice meant to help K-12 school groups smash their fundraising goals. Join our 10,000+ member community!
What’s the difference between a fundraiser that reaches its goal and one that doesn’t?
Many factors go into creating successful fundraising campaigns, but nearly all of them are aimed at the same goal: to paint a compelling picture for potential donors that motivates them to contribute.
FutureFund is here to help you paint that picture. Our school fundraising platform makes it easy to create campaigns with all the required elements for success—from the right name and description to an intuitive layout, supporting media, donation features, and more.
Read on for the anatomy of a successful school fundraising campaign.
The name of your campaign is often the first thing potential donors will see in your online store—so it needs to engage them and communicate essential information at a glance. Here’s a checklist of elements you should consider including in the name of your next campaign:
Let’s say you’re raising money for an outdoor education field trip for 4th-grade students at Beaumont Elementary. An example would be:
“4th Grade Outdoor Ed Field Trip at Beaumont”
Note that the more specific details (like who will benefit and what the fundraiser is for) come first here. The name of the school comes at the end, since this will probably appear in most of your school’s fundraisers—placing it at the end avoids confusion for potential donors by making sure they don’t see a wall of campaigns that all start with “Beaumont”.
It’s also helpful to call out the type of fundraiser you’re running, especially if the fundraiser is a particularly fun or engaging event. For example, fun runs and read-a-thons often get people excited, especially if their friend or family member is participating.
The next part of your campaign that people will pay attention to is the description. It can be hard to know what to include in your descriptions—you want to give enough information that people understand the value of the project, but not so much that you confuse or overwhelm them.
We recommend using a few simple guidelines to keep your descriptions focused and organized. These are called the “4 Ws”.
Simply state what the campaign is raising money to support. Example: “We’re fundraising for Outdoor Ed at Beaumont.”
Tell potential donors who benefits from the project or cause that you’re funding. Example: “Fourth-grade students are eligible to attend.”
Demonstrate the value of the cause or project funds are being raised for, and show how people benefit. Example: “This is an important experience where students will learn about our state’s history, pan for gold, and camp in an outdoor setting.”
Explain why fundraising is the best or only way to support the cause or make the project happen. Example: “We are asking for donations as this program does not receive any state or district funding.”
Putting the above together in a way that’s both concise and engaging can still be tough, so FutureFund offers AI-assisted writing for campaign descriptions. This can help you draft effective descriptions, which can then be edited to match the style and culture of your unique school group.
Here’s an example of a simple campaign description written by hand for the example fundraiser we described earlier:
And here’s a description for the same campaign after using our AI Magic tool to enhance it:
Using these tools can save hours when creating your campaign and help you launch it with more confidence.
Learn More: How to Run a Fundraising Campaign
Having the right information on your campaign page is only half the battle—you also need to arrange it in a way that’s easy for potential donors to consume and understand.
Hosting your campaign on the right platform can go a long way towards achieving this. For example, FutureFund campaigns are designed to present all campaign information in a user-friendly way by default. You’ll see that even the most basic version of our example campaign still puts the essentials (name, description, donation area) together in an inviting package:
But you can also go much further here—adding visual media and more. Whether or not you use our platform, all your fundraising campaigns can benefit from including the following elements:
These visuals help bring your fundraiser to life and make it engaging. Strong visuals make it easier for potential donors to imagine the difference their contributions are making.
When you’re creating a campaign on FutureFund, you can upload two images:
You can also add video to your campaigns when you create them. Do this by:
The easier you make it for people to view and interact with your campaign page, the more donations you’re likely to receive. FutureFund is designed to help your campaign pages accommodate as many users as possible, with accessibility features like:
FutureFund is FREE for schools, PTAs, and school groups. Start your fundraiser today!
Get StartedThe more obstacles you remove for potential donors, the more likely they’ll be to follow through and donate. This means your donation pages need to lay out clear next steps and remove uncertainty.
FutureFund lets you customize the donation area in each fundraising campaign with features that seamlessly guide visitors towards completing transactions. These include:
Once you’ve successfully built your school fundraiser, you can also use FutureFund to share and promote it. All campaigns designed with our platform come with shareable links that can be copied and pasted into emails, text messages, and social media posts to bring traffic to your donation page.
You can also use our built-in messaging system to announce campaigns, send regular updates, and thank donors. Use features like:
When you build a fundraising campaign with the right information and present it effectively, you encourage donors to participate and increase your chances of reaching your goals. Use the information above to make sure your fundraising campaigns are complete and compelling.
FutureFund makes it easy to build school fundraisers that include all of the elements above and inspire audiences to take action. Get started for free today and prepare to run your best fundraiser yet.
FutureFund’s custom campaigns fit a wide range of different fundraiser types, including:
Yes—you’ll have the option to add a donation tracker to your campaign that tracks and displays your fundraising progress in real-time. This is a great way to show the school community how close you are to reaching your goals (or how much support you still need for an important project).
FutureFund’s built-in financial reporting tools let you generate Campaign Summaries and other financial reports in just a few moments. This can help your school group stay compliant and save huge amounts of time for your PTA treasurer.
FutureFund collects a small platform fee from each donor who pays through our site as a percentage of their contribution. This gives us the resources we need to keep updating our tools and providing support for the school groups we serve while allowing schools to collect 100% of all donations and sales.
See what other parents and schools are saying about us!
Here’s how to promote mental health awareness while running an effective fundraiser for your school group, with detailed steps from the team at FutureFund.
Use FutureFund to streamline ticketing for sporting events, performing arts, school dances, and more with this guide from our team that includes steps and best practices.
How can you make the best possible treasurer report for your PTA, what should you put in it, and how can you format it effectively? Find out here with help from the FutureFund team and benefit from our years of experience helping PTAs streamline their financial duties.
Make your next PTA treasurer report a breeze with this ready-made template! We include fields for income, expenses, and more—along with helpful information on tools you can use to calculate these amounts in less time.
What should you do to make your PTA or PTO’s next fundraising campaign succeed? Learn all about setting up and executing a fundraising campaign here, with help from the Future Fund team.
Here’s how to promote mental health awareness while running an effective fundraiser for your school group, with detailed steps from the team at FutureFund.
Use FutureFund to streamline ticketing for sporting events, performing arts, school dances, and more with this guide from our team that includes steps and best practices.
How can you make the best possible treasurer report for your PTA, what should you put in it, and how can you format it effectively? Find out here with help from the FutureFund team and benefit from our years of experience helping PTAs streamline their financial duties.
